he was in the military in israel for the best part of 40 years. he went on to serve as prime minister, foreign minister, and defense minister most recently as well. what he says now he wants to do is simply to retire from politics. he's reached retirement age, more or less, and wants to spend more time with his family. i think feeding into that, as well, there have been some recent opinion polls in israel, the party which he leads, the independence party in israel, has been slighted in opinion polls as well. there was a sense in the upcoming elections in the country, his party would not have gained any or not very many seats at all. so, he was on the brink, if you will, of some kind of political obscurity. so he's taken this decision more less to preempt that, john. >> he flipped from labor a few years ago. any e his departure will play a role in these peace talks happening in cairo? and what is the status of those talks? >> i'm not sure that his resignation is going to have a direct impact. although obviously it's a changing personality in this f